


The Old and the New

by Dalankar



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: AU, M/M, Minor Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 14:12:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1553261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dalankar/pseuds/Dalankar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He fell in love with Harry when they were ten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Old and the New

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by TASM2. Just Peter and Harry, without any alter egos.  
> Translated to Chinese by the lovely Lannieavoy:  
> http://ruolan427.lofter.com/post/271c47_eb8d479

He fell in love with Harry when they were ten. He remembers Valentine's Day that year. He had asked aunt May what it meant.

_What's a Valentine, aunt May?_

She'd told him that it was _someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, sweetheart._

Peter had immediately known who it was.

Harry Osborn, with his mischievous smile and bright eyes, who chose to play with Peter even when he made fun of Peter's eyebrows, and stood shoulder to shoulder with Peter against the school bullies.

Harry had stared at the card with a thoughtful face when Peter had given it to him.

"You're giving it to me?"

Peter had nodded, completely sincere that he wanted to spend the rest of his life playing with Harry.

Then Harry had wordlessly reached into his bag and pulled out a card, much less endowed with pink than Peter's own, and with a single heart drawn on the front.

"Here," Harry had said, holding it out towards Peter. "You're my Valentine too."

 

-

 

Then Harry had disappeared. Hadn't come to school and when Peter had gone over to the Osborn mansion with aunt May, they had told him that Harry had gone away. Boarding school in Europe. Peter had cried himself to sleep for days, had felt that missing space in his heart for longer. But then as time passed, inevitably, the pain had eased. It had settled. But he couldn't bring himself to throw away that card with the single heart on it.

 

-

 

When he saw Harry again, it was on the news, hanging out with supermodels in France. Peter had thought that was when he let Harry go. Obviously their paths would never cross again and they would both have to find other people to spend their lives with. But still, he couldn't throw away the Valentine's card. For old time's sake. For remembrance. That once, a long time ago, he had someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

 

-

 

Then he sees Harry on the news again. Not in France but in New York. It's a terrible photo, probably off someone's phone, slightly off focus and blurry. But it is Harry. Peter wonders if Harry would look for him. Would think to seek him out. Does he still remember?

All that time spent together, tumbling all over Harry's mansion. They were meant to take on the world together. Peter takes the decision out of Harry's hands. Harry had always been a proud kid, hated asking for anything, even if those things were his' in the first place.

So Peter goes over, knocks on the carved wooden doors that are as large as he remembers, and waits in the hall for the 'young master' to appear.

Peter wonders what it means that Harry appears within five minutes. He wonders if Harry had simply been nearby or if he had run, from his room on the third floor, down all those flights of stairs for Peter. He mentally slaps himself for that thought as soon as it appears, squishing down on the warm feeling in induces just as fast.

Harry is different. But not. He is taller, sharper, no more 'chubby cheeks' jokes. But those eyes, blue and piercing, are the same.

"Peter."

Peter lets out the breath he'd been holding. Not entirely forgotten then.

He takes a step forward. "Welcome home."

Harry smiles a smile that is half a smirk. That one is new. If he gets the time, Peter would like to learn about it. Even if he isn't entirely sure that he wants to. But then why is he here in the first place?

 

-

 

Peter convinces Harry out for a walk and an over-priced hotdog. Harry laughs, this one Peter knows, and says, "yes, anything to get out of here." And Peter thinks that nothing has changed at all.

They're walking over one of the numerous bridges of the park with spring flowers in full bloom around them when Harry leans back against the railing and looks at him. Peter tries not to fidget under those clear blue eyes.

"You didn't forget me." The way Harry says it makes it sound like an accusation, like maybe Peter should have. Peter lifts his eyes from his shoes and meets that piercing gaze.

"Couldn't."

Harry laughs and turns away. "Everyone else did."

Peter takes a step closer. He wants to reach out and touch those tense lines of Harry's shoulders.

"I didn't."

Harry spins around to face him. "What do you want from me?"

 _I don't want anything from you_ , he wants to say but maybe that is not entirely true. "What do you want from me?" He asks instead.

Harry laughs. "You always used to do that. It's still annoying."

Peter grins his most charming grin. "Come out to dinner with me tomorrow night. There’s this new Korean place, makes the best bibimbap you've ever tasted."

It takes a long moment, and Peter hold his breath again, but in the end Harry nods and says, "Yeah, alright."

 

-

 

Turns out Harry's father had brought him back to get him 'into the game’. To train Harry to become the next head of the Osborn empire.

Harry's voice is curiously flat when he tells him, sitting there across the table from him, chopsticks held steady above his rice.

"I thought he forgot about me."

Peter takes a sip of his bong bong, a curiously named grape drink in a can.

"Parents are a fucking nuisance!" Harry suddenly swears, finally becoming animated, but almost immediately his eyes widen. "Peter-"

Peter holds up a hand. "It's okay." It has been a long, long time.

Harry leans forward. "Pete, I'm so sorry."

Peter smiles. "Seriously, Harry, I know about your father."

Harry watches him carefully for a moment and finally smiles, a quick upward quirk of the lips. That's new too.

"I tried to run away, you know," Harry says, eyes fixed somewhere out the window. "At boarding school. His goons found me in two hours." Harry laughs at the end, as if it was a joke.

"Maybe we should try again," Peter tells him.

Harry turns curious blue eyes towards him. "What?"

"We can do it. Shouldn’t be too hard. We can-"

"Why do you keep on saying that?"

Peter looks at Harry in confusion. "What?"

Harry is frowning at him. "'We'! You keep saying 'we'."

This time it is Peter who frowns.

"Why? Are you going away again?"

Harry shakes his head, the frown disappears but he still looks slightly lost.

"Are you sure you want-Peter, I- you'll probably get sick of me sooner than you think."

Peter shakes his head adamantly. "Nope. Don't count on it."

Harry bursts into laughter. "I missed you." Harry's words are soft, almost as if he's talking to himself. But he is looking at Peter.

"Then don't go away again."

 

-

 

"Were they nice, those supermodels?" Peter asks, mainly out of curiosity. Harry had… not looked unhappy in those photos. Peter surprises himself with the jealousy he feels at the thought of _others_.

Harry shrugs, "I guess. One of them, he-" Harry doesn't say whatever he’d been about to say and instead swallows a mouthful of ice cream. "What about you?"

Peter's automatic reaction is to say _no, not since you_. But that doesn't make sense. Because there had been others. But he realises now that he's talking in the past tense because none of them had been what he's been looking for. He realises now why he never found it. He looks at Harry, lying beside him on the grass, propped up on his elbows. His perfect hair is falling into his face and there is a smudge of ice cream on his chin.

“Not really. Not since you.”

 

-

 

Two days later, Harry turns up on Peter's doorstep with a large bouquet of flowers, large enough to completely obscure his face. Once Peter figures out who is standing behind the flowers, he fixates on the next pressing question.

"You got me flowers?"

Harry laughs. This one Peter knows. "No, you doofus. They're for your aunt May."

Peter stares at him. Harry Osborn is standing on his doorstep. It's funny but Peter had never even dared to dream this. Harry shifts slightly under his gaze. "She's home isn't she? I thought-"

"But you came to visit me, right?" Peter asks just to make sure. Harry looks at him as if he's an idiot. That's a new one. Peter probably deserved that one. He probably should get used to it.

"No. I came to your house, at a time I knew you'd be at home, just to see your aunt and give her flowers," Harry deadpans.

Peter laughs, scratching at his neck. "Sorry-just- come in. Come in."

Aunt May is delighted by the flowers. But she is even more delighted by Harry. She looks at Peter with her smiling eyes and he knows she's happy for him. While she busies herself with finding several vases for the flowers, Peter leads Harry to his room. Like he used to.

It's weird that he should feel nervous as Harry stands there looking around at a room Peter had lived in for the past 15 years.

"It's the same." Harry turns his head to look at him. "Same as I remember."

Peter shrugs. His bed is bigger. And most of his toys have disappeared into the attic. It's not exactly the same as it had been all those years ago when they would sit on Peter’s bed and watch the stars. Then Harry moves over to his pinup wall. A place for all of Peter's memorable things, including some newspaper clippings of when he won the budding scientist award for his solar powered helicopter, and some odds and ends that he'd found interesting over the years, and-

"You still have it."

Peter doesn't have to see what Harry's looking at to know what 'it' is.

"I couldn't throw it out."

Peter watches as Harry reaches out, tentative fingers pausing before they touch the card.

"Why?"

"It was from my first valentine."

Harry turns around. Peter steps closer, cradles Harry's face with one hand. "Can I?" He asks softly.

Harry looks at him, those blue eyes Peter could never forget. He is so still under Peter's touch and his voice is soft when he says, "I looked for you for so long."

Peter closes the distance between them and doesn't say that he had stayed exactly where Harry had left him.

 

-

 

The months that follow are the happiest in Peter's conscious memory. He loves learning new things about Harry, like the way he tilts his head a little to the left when he's listening and the way he starts picking at his fingernails when he's bored and the way his eyes would go soft when he's just about to lean up and kiss Peter. It's not all brand new. Sometimes it feels like he’s reading a book he’d read a long time ago and noticing things that he never did, understanding it differently to how he did before.

He is happy. He thinks this is destiny. That they've been destined to be together since they were ten. He is happy and he dreams about the rest of his life.

 

A lesson he should have learned 12 years ago, nothing ever lasts. And Harry Osborn had been the one to teach him that all those years ago too.

 

-

 

Peter doesn't know if Harry loves him.

 

Harry looks at him with cool blue eyes and doesn't correct him.

 

-

 

He still can't bring himself to throw that card away.

 

-

 

The first Valentine’s Day after they break up, he gets it in the mail.

A pink card, over-decorate with hand glued hearts, the hand writing of a ten year old spelling out simply, _'to my valentine, from Peter.'_

When Peter opens it, there is a message. This is new.

_Could never bring myself to throw it away. It was from my first valentine._

 

-

 

The drizzle turns into a torrential downpour between the metro station and the Osborn mansion. Peter stands on the doorstep, drenched down to his underwear, shivering against the winter's cold, and he's here for the third time, searching for Harry Osborn.

The door opens before he knocks. Harry stands on the other side, warm, dry and… breathless as if he'd been running.

"You ran down?" The question escapes Peter before he can stop himself.

Harry blinks, obviously not the first words he'd expected from Peter. Then he flushes, turning a deeper shade of pink.

"Maybe...Yeah."

Peter stares at him.

"You're drenched," Harry points out.

Peter tries to laugh but his teeth start chattering just at that moment. Silence stretches between them and then-

"It was always for you," Harry says suddenly. "The Valentine's Day card. I got it for you."

Peter laughs helplessly, tears stinging at his eyes. "I know."

Harry looks at him, then steps back and holds the door open wider. Peter steps forward.

Of course he knows.

 

-

 

_To peter,_

_You're my valentine._

_From Harry.  
_

 

*


End file.
